Phased array antennas are used in a variety of commercial and military applications. Typically, these antennas include hundreds of transmit/receive radiating elements that are supported adjacent one surface of a core component. Typically, the core component is made from a thermally conductive material such as aluminum. Also supported on the core component is a plurality of ceramic chip carrier boards that support a plurality of monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), phase shifters and other components. These components generate heat which is radiated through thermally conductive standoffs that are used to support the ceramic chip carrier boards closely adjacent the core component. In previously developed systems, the core component itself is supported on a cold plate. The cold plate has internally formed channels or tubes integrally formed with it to circulate a fluid through the cold plate. The fluid helps to draw heat from the core component, which in turn enables the ceramic chip carrier boards to be cooled.
While the above arrangement has proven to be successful in many applications, it would nevertheless be desirable to provide even more efficient cooling of the ceramic chip carrier and its components. Increased cooling ability is expected to become important as phased array antennas support even greater numbers of radiating elements and associated MMICs, phase shifters, etc., that will generate even greater amounts of heat that will need to be dissipated.
Thus, there remains a need to even further improve the cooling of a phased array module using a cooling medium, but which does not significantly complicate the construction of a phased array antenna, nor which limits the number of radiating/reception elements that may be employed or otherwise interferes with mounting of the ceramic chip carrier boards on a module core component.